This is the funniest thing that happened to me last year. It was bow season, and my husband and his buddy were hunting in the mountains near here. I rifle hunt, but usually follow them up to help out dropping them off, picking them up, etc. I camp separate from them, just because of different styles---they sleep in a camper, don't have a campfire, use a generator. The weather is still pretty decent then, and I like to build a fire, throw a bag on the ground, just be more basic. Anyway, I was camped around the mountain aways, and got up Saturday morning thinking I'd just dink around. About noon, I was sitting on a little road eating lunch. Pretty soon I heard a "jingle jingle". Here came two dogs with radio collars. They made their way up the road to me, stopped, and just stood there. I figured they were bobcat dogs, since that's the only thing you can hunt with dogs here anymore. For some reason, I thought they seemed hungry, so I gave them the rest of my sandwich. They gobbled it up, and I got in my truck and left, thinking they would just go back to hunting bobcat like they were supposed to. Wrong! I spent the rest of the weekend driving, hiking, and picking the first chantrelles of the season. Wherever I went, they found me! They must have followed me at least seven miles that day. Every time they found me, they would howl and howl! Night came, I went back to were I was gonna camp, and as soon as I got the fire going, here they came again! "Jingle, jingle, jingle!" It's a good thing I already knew what they were. Otherwise, those little red lights on their collars coming at me in the pitch dark probably would have scared me to death! They slept right next to me that night. Sunday morning, I drove around the mountain to use my husband's cellphone to call the number on their collars. Turns out they were from Washington, had been hunting in Oregon, and got lost when they had taken off after a cat. I got ahold of their owner's wife, she gave me her husband's cell number. I left him a message and gave him some landmarks around where we were. He came and picked them up. Maybe you had to be there, but it was a really funny experience being tracked by two dogs all weekend!
Funny hunting / fishing stories....
